“Thank God for juries,” he said before heading home to his first party in more than a year.

Purana detectives were in no mood to celebrate and began more investigations into the man who claimed he had long ago morphed from an underworld heavy to a legitimate businessman.

Gatto was investigated but never arrested over three underworld killings. One man was charged with one of the murders and offered a deal to turn on Gatto.

Gatto responded by paying his legal fees.

He was acquitted.

More parties for Mick - more meetings for Purana.

Over several years police strategy in investigating organised crime has subtly shifted. It became about dismantling syndicates rather than chucking a couple of hoods in the clink.

Career crooks saw jail as an occupational hazard but the loss of their empire as catastrophic.

Chase the money and you destroy the power was the message. But how?

The model was obvious. US officials failed to get mobster Al Capone for murder, bribery and his obvious organised crime connections but nailed him on tax evasion.

The Tax Office had long been seen as a way of harpooning crime whales but somehow in the 1980s and 1990 the ATO became exclusively interested in raising revenue.

It started targeting classes of taxpayers, preferring to audit the tax returns of thousands of taxi drivers, small business owners and office workers than gangsters rolling in dough while claiming to live on the breadline.

Better to target maths teachers with leather patches on their sports jackets than patched members of outlaw bikie gangs.

Wealthy drug dealer Nik “The Bulgarian” Radev simply refused to lodge a tax return while Tony Mokbel claimed he lived on $160 a week when he used to leave more than that in restaurant tip trays.

One Victorian drug dealer was assessed by the ATO as owing $1,348,048.60 for the years 1982-86. The drug dealer negotiated the deal down to $440,000 as full payment.

When he arrived at his lawyers' with the money one of the staff remarked how it smelled musty. Little wonder, it had been hidden for years in the ceiling of his Moonee Ponds home as the world's most expensive insulation.

Then Treasurer Peter Costello suggested he had had a gutful of rich crooks flaunting the system.

In 2004 he made a public statement about the underworld war in Melbourne.

“I pledge that if federal tax authorities can assist in tracking and taxing the flow of money that sustains the lifestyles of these drug barons, then everything that can be done will be done. We stand ready, anxious to assist.”

In other words, “Pick up the phone and we'll do a Capone.”

First target was the Mokbel clan. Eventually assets worth $55 million were frozen, more that 1000 tax infringement notices issued and $4 million in back taxes collected.

Flushed with success and following the arrest of Tony Mokbel in Greece they moved to their next target – Gatto Inc.

In 2007 police and tax officials in Victoria began to work on Gatto and his known associates, examining spending patterns, business connections and investments.

At no stage did the man they call Mick cry poor. A regular at Melbourne's five star restaurants he recently upgraded from a top of the range Mercedes to a particularly shiny Rolls Royce Ghost.

Following his acquittal Gatto became a celebrity. He wrote a book, published by Melbourne University Press, entitled I Mick Gatto.

It was a runaway best seller. At the launch at Florentino Restaurant a large number of men with necks requiring their own postcodes bought copious quantities of copies forcing publishing staff to call for reinforcements.

Gatto was happy to sign any and all copies with a designer pen for men who gave the impression the last thing they read was their brief of evidence.

It was standing room, which was ironic as the shiny black limos downstairs were parked illegally in front of no standing signs. No tickets were issued.

Gatto became a celebrity. While Purana detectives who stopped the underworld war remained largely anonymous Mick became rich and infamous.

At the boxing he risked potentially fatal beard rash by being kissed on both cheeks by scores of devoted supporters.

Normal citizens would stop him on the street to ask him to pose for a photo and sign an autograph. “And I always do,” he said. “Because you never know who will be on a jury.”

He ran charity events and only a couple of weeks ago went to Sydney to present a cheque for a million dollars for a worthwhile cause. “That doesn't make the papers,” he told us, adding “and they are all audited.”

Meanwhile Purana and the ATO were digging into Gatto's rich and colourful past.

He was known to be a massive punter but his records could not be checked at Crown casino simply because police had placed him on the banned list.

He later considered sending then Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon a diamond ring because “she saved me a fortune”.

He had worked as a top-end debt collector and a mediator in the building industry, both areas known for cash payments and laissez-faire paperwork.

He claims that having been hit with tax bills previously, his books are now “squeaky clean”.

And while he was well aware his finances were again under scrutiny he was surprised when his credit card was declined at a Sydney restaurant.

A quick check showed the balance was zero. The tax department, he said, had seized all his bank accounts and told his clients who kept him on retainer to pay them instead.

Gatto and his family had been hit with a back-dated tax bill of $10 million. Earlier this year he folded one of his rigging (building, not horse racing) companies' $3 million tax debt.

So the man who had been called a stand-over man (a claim he denies) said the tax department was trying to stand over him.

“They are trying to put me out of business. Now, I'm not crying because I am a big boy and I'll get by because I have plenty of friends, but how is the average person supposed to fight something like this when they freeze all your money? It is simply not right.”

The ATO has set up its own 100-strong audit team to investigate organised crime – a black industry estimated to turn over $15 billion a year in Australia.

It has been so successful it has seized more than $300 million in the past three years.

And tax officials are an integral part of a new national taskforce targeting Australia's fastest growing outlaw motorcycle gang – The Rebels.

Meanwhile Gatto has declared he will fight the assessment “tooth and nail”.

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He said that now his assets were frozen he would, “be forced to get creative. Within the law of course.”

John Silvester is a Walkley-award winning crime writer and columnist. A co-author of the best-selling books that formed the basis of the hit Australian TV series Underbelly, Silvester is also a regular guest on 3AW with his "Sly of the Underworld" segment.